Datsyuk's agent, Gary Greenstin, told M-Live.com that the star forward “will have to play somewhere'' if there is a lockout and said he has a plan in place for him. But Greenstin said he wasn't prepared to share any details until Sept. 15, saying he hopes a new CBA is in place by then.

Datsyuk is practicing with Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg of the Kontinental Hockey League. Greenstin said Datsyuk will arrive in Detroit next week and continue preparing for the start of Red Wings training camp (the first on-ice practice is scheduled for Sept. 22 at Centre I.C.E. In Traverse City).

Datsyuk played for Dynamo Moscow during the 2004-05 NHL lockout. If he ends up playing in Russia again, his deal likely will include an escape clause enabling him to return to Detroit during the KHL season if the NHL and the players settle on a new CBA.

The Red Wings' players will have to formulate some sort of plan to find a place to skate and practice if a lockout takes place. The Wings' AHL affiliate, the Grand Rapids Griffins, won't have to compete with youth hockey teams for ice time at other rinks if they don't open training camp with the Wings on September 22nd, but the Grand Rapids Press's Peter J. Wallner reports that Griffins coach Jeff Blashill already has a back-up plan ready to go:

One [plan] is to join with the Detroit Red Wings in Traverse City from Sept. 22-27 before reporting to Grand Rapids about Oct. 6. The other is to have players report to Grand Rapids about Sept. 28. It all depends what happens in talks between the league and union over a new collective bargaining agreement. The current CBA expires Sept. 15, and talks between the two have been generally acrimonious, raising fear of a lockout.

“From there, whatever happens, if the preparations are made, we can handle whatever comes to us,” said Blashill, who played Monday in the 18th annual Griffins Youth Foundation Golf Classic at Egypt Valley Country Club.

Blashill didn't take part in the Wings' summer development camp due to a familial issue, but Blashil told Wallner that he's not particularly concerned about beginning relationships with some of the Red Wings' top prospects without having seen them play since last year's prospect tournament (given that the Wings cancelled this year's event due to lockout worries), either:

A director with the Michigan Amateur Hockey Association is suing the organization in Oakland Circuit Court, seeking to see financial records he claims will show mismanagement and inappropriate spending.

The hockey association is a statewide nonprofit corporation that oversees activities for 50,000 players and coaches and 2,500 teams across Michigan.

The lawsuit, assigned to Oakland Circuit Judge Colleen O'Brien, alleges the association has failed to obtain competitive bids for expenditures of more than $10,000; serves alcohol it paid for at group meetings; and provides credit cards to the executive board without oversight.

Looking back: Tootoo, 29, spent the last eight seasons with the Nashville Predators, where he gained a reputation as a pest. He spent the last year working especially hard on developing his offensive skills while still managing to rack up 92 penalty minutes. He saw limited action in playoffs, where he played just 6 minutes in Game 3 of the five-game series against the Red Wings.

Several Red Wings players and GM Ken Holland took part in Monday's Ilitch Charities Golf Classic, and while only some of the interviews have hit the web (thus far), Holland told WDIV's Bernie Smilovitz that he, "Would like to make a move," whether it's a signing and/or trade over the next couple of weeks, to strengthen the defense (no video, sorry)...

Well, it appears that the pre-pre-season preview news cycle's going to involve fantasy hockey projections. Following this morning's Predators vs. Red Wings take from the Tennessean's Josh Cooper (now being promoted on USA Today's hockey page), ESPN's Robert Vollman and Craig custance offered a "Summer Skate" take on the Red Wings' fantasy hockey values (and it's an Insider-only article, sorry).

Vollman suggsts that Niklas Kronwall will shine without Nicklas Lidstrom, but Ian White won't repeate his 11-12 performance sans Lidstrom as his defensive partner, but the most important part of the entry may be its introduction...

Finishing third in their division for the first time since Sergei Fedorov's rookie season over 20 years ago, one can excuse fans who hold the unfounded fear the Wings aging lineup will finally slide out of the postseason.

Though they aren't the division title threat they recently were, the Wings still have superstars Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg, and remain one of the league's most disciplined and possession-oriented teams.

Failing to replace Nicklas Lidstrom, not to mention Brad Stuart, will indeed make it more difficult to remain as competitive while their enviable pool of prospects develop, but not so difficult that they'll be competing for early tee times with the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Though Custance's take on Damien Brunner's possible presence as an x-factor of sorts is intriguing, too:

Detroit, MI… Three-time Stanley Cup champion Chris Osgood, one of only ten goaltenders in NHL history to have won 400 career games, has emerged victorious from the latest round of voting in Operation: Bobblehead – Alumni Edition, an ongoing campaign charged with determining which former Hockeytown greats will be immortalized in the form of a collectible 6 ½ inch polyresin figurine during the upcoming NHL season. Bobbleheads depicting Osgood, Kirk Maltby, Kris Draper, Steve Yzerman and Vladimir Konstantinov will be distributed to 7,500 lucky Joe Louis Arena patrons at select 2012-13 Red Wings home games, with another member of the Red Wings Alumni Association set to join their ranks during the forthcoming fifth round of voting.

And now things are going to get a little weird. With private schools' academic years beginning this week and public schools' academic years beginning the day after Labor Day, the majority of the Red Wings' veterans will be filtering back into Metro Detroit this week, with their younger teammates likely to return from their summer homes by the end of the first week of September, so the news cycle will pick up, starting today.

As the Wings' Twitter account noted on Sunday, the Ilitch Charities Golf Classic takes place today, and a charity dinner preceded it on Sunday evening...

There's also some news regarding Pavel Datsyuk's playing plans. Datsyuk was ptaking part in a charity hockey game in Kazan, and as Yahoo Sports' Greg "Puck Daddy" Wyshynski noted, Datsyuk spoke to R-Sport about the possibility that he might play in the KHL this fall (and this is roughly translated):

If one source makes it a “report,” two make it, “sources say” and three make it official, MLive’s Brendan Savage and the Macomb Daily’s Chuck Pleiness received a hand from the Windsor Star’s Bob Duff, who gives Wings fans another leg to stand upon if they indeed hope that Carlo Colaiacovo is the Red Wings’ free agent band-aid of choice:

According to a #redwings source, club has offered UFA D Carlo Colaiacovo a 2 yr deal in area of $2.5 million per season.

I’m not exactly jumping up and down about the Wings’ interest, but Colaiacovo is the most talented of the remaining unrestricted free agent defensemen available on the UFA market, he’s the most talented in terms of being able to not just keep up with the Wings’ system in terms of skating and his skill set, but he can also head-man the puck pretty well, and under the current, expiring CBA, even with his injury history, a $2.5 million salary for any defenseman who can skate in a straight line and handle the puck better than a five-year-old is a bargain.

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The Malik Report is a destination for all things Red Wings-related. I offer biased, perhaps unprofessional-at-times and verbose coverage of my favorite team, their prospects and developmental affiliates. I've joined the Kukla's Korner family with five years of blogging under my belt, and I hope you'll find almost everything you need to follow your Red Wings at a place where all opinions are created equal and we're all friends, talking about hockey and the team we love to follow.